Department of Philosophy
Faculty
Randolph Clarke
Professor (Princeton University)
151 Dodd Hall
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500
Office: 154 A Dodd Hall
Phone: (850) 644-1483
Fax: (850) 644-3832
Email: rkclarke@fsu.edu
Office Hours: MT 10:00-12:00 (Spring 2010)
Research Interests
My primary research interests are issues concerning human agency, particularly intentional action, free will, and moral responsibility. I’ve also written on practical reason, mental causation, and dispositions.
I favor a causal theory of action, on which something counts as an intentional action in virtue of being appropriately caused by mental events of certain sorts, such as the agent’s having an intention with pertinent content. This kind of action theory takes human agency to be a natural phenomenon, something of a kind with (even if differing in sophistication from) the agency of many non-human animals.
Many philosophers have thought that free and morally responsible action would be ruled out if our actions were causally determined by prior events. My book, Libertarian Accounts of Free Will, examines whether indeterminism of any sort is more hospitable. Though I defend libertarian views (accounts requiring indeterminism) from several common objections, I argue that none of these accounts is adequate. If responsibility isn’t compatible with determinism, then, I think, it isn’t possible.
Selected Publications
"Intentional Omissions," Nous 44 (2010), 27-35.
"Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism," Mind 118 (2009), 323-51.
“Intrinsic Finks," Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2008), 512-18.
“Autonomous Reasons for Intending,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2008), 191-212.
Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
“Modest Libertarianism,” Philosophical Perspectives 14 (2000), 21-45.
“Indeterminism and Control,” American Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1995), 125-38.
“Toward a Credible Agent-Causal Account of Free Will,” Nous 27 (1993), 191-203.
“Deliberation and Beliefs About One’s Abilities,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1992), 103-13.
Forthcoming Publications
"Are We Free To Obey the Laws?" American Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming.
"Omissions, Responsibility, and Symmetry," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming.
"Opposing Powers," Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.
"Skilled Activity and the Causal Theory of Action," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming.